3D

In creating this image I danced around quite a bit. I started off looking for some reference images but didn’t find many that fit my idea of things. So, I decided to create a reference in 3D Studio Max. Mainly for the water aspect of the painting because even though I love the water and how it can add a touch of magic to any environment, it isn’t very easy to get it right and will harm the painting more than help it if you don’t get it right. And being that my painting’s subject was surrounded I wanted to get it fairly “right“. As I got into modeling things, I thought that maybe I would just do the whole thing in 3D instead of a 2D painting. But then I came to the point that I just couldn’t get the lighting the way I wanted. I tried different things in Photoshop to give it that atmosphere I was looking for and then realized that everything is too realistic. Although I wanted a semi-sense of realism, I wanted more the feeling of fantasy with a touches of cartoon like exaggerations. And so I started over. I first sketched it out on a piece of paper and then painted it in Photoshop. Most of the elements from the 3D version are in the 2D version but I am much happier with the results of the 2D painting.

Here’s another low poly model. I made this as a form of tutorial for my son. I was showing him somethings in 3D Studio Max and he wanted to make a tank and this is the result of that session. It more reminded me of a vehicle that you might find in MotorStorm or similar styled racing games.

All materials were made in Photoshop except the concrete and it’s bump map. The sky is a post render edit done in Photoshop.

I had fun creating the “Croc-Bot”. I originally created this to star in a short animation, mainly for the practice. I like working in 3D but I am far from being a master at it. So I thought that creating a robot, or at least something mechanical, would be easier to bone / rig because there aren’t any muscles to flex, clothes to bend and wrinkle, and you don’t have to think about skin envelopes. I never got around to animating it… but I did finish rigging it.

The lighting and environment is still very simple, and I didn’t do any post render editing either so I know it is missing a bit of an atmosphere. I had always like the “Flying Tigers“, the P-40 paintings of the mouth on the plane and wanted to incorporate a similar painting on the Croc-Bot without copying the original design of the Flying Tigers. Plus, let’s face it, the mouth gives this machine a bit of a personality.

Most of the materials are from 3DS Max’s “arch+design mental ray” materials like paint and chrome. The decals I made in Photoshop. The environment materials are tiled materials. I believe the concrete is a default material and the wall tiles came from Dawid Michalczyk’ site.

“The Shack” was one of my earliest attempts at low poly modeling. It is nothing marvelous, but I think it is simplistically nice. I wanted to put an old rusty Ford pickup (mid 30’s model) to the left of the shack, but never got around to it.

The main structure was created out of one cube. Most of the materials are default materials or Google image search results. The grass is 3DS Max’s fur modifier. The Sky and clouds are the result of post render editing in Photoshop.